#saying it's all meaningless and fake does

[bilesproblems]

My biggest problem as an mspec lesbian is being in inclus spaces and seeing "labels don't have meaning" or "gender is fake" yes the fuck they do and no the fuck it isn't.

If labels meant nothing, no one would use them. Saying labels mean nothing is invalidating to mspec lesbians and lesboys because our use of the lesbian label isn't "lol it means nothing anyway." Lesbian means something and that meaning means something to us. Just because our relationships with the label and the ways we use them are complicated doesn't mean it means nothing. Just because an increased understanding of gender and orientation can allow labels to encompass different experiences doesn't mean they mean nothing. If they meant nothing we would just avoid the drama and not identify this way.

If gender is fake I wouldn't feel it so strongly. "Social construct" has never meant fake, never meant it can't exist in your brain. We're social animals, and social constructs can greatly impact our brain. Saying gender isn't real invalidates everyone that isn't agender, genderless, gendervoid, or cassgender. Gender is complicated but it's real. (ETA: I found this post again. As an anon pointed out, it also invalidates genderless people who consider not having a gender, refusing to be gendered, or refusing to care about their gender to be important parts of their identity by taking away the thing that makes their identity unique in the first place.)

Just because something is complicated and isn't perfectly linear doesn't mean it's right to say it means nothing. That's not a justification, if it meant nothing we wouldn't need to defend our labels, it just invalidates people. Stop.

[kurp-stuff]

Well the french in the last episode of iwtv was certainly something

[redcherrykook]

ִֶָ── ࣪ ִֶָ🦇་༘࿐ Kinktober D8- officer play & cuffs

────☠︎︎────

content: roleplay!! bad girl oc, handcuff restraint, orgasm denial, penetration doggy, hair pulling, oral (f& m rec) , throat grabbing, spanking, praise and degredation, creampie, cutesy lil end, she calls him sir& officer, begging

note from cherry: i'm sorry if this is bad i suck at degradation bc i have a huge praise kink and would actually cry if someone called me a slut LMAO

────☠︎︎────

"Needy fucking brat" the grip on your wrists tightens, jungkook has got one of his large palms keeping both your wrists firmly pressed on your lower back,

You hear the clinking of his policebelt, rattles of the fake uniform against his hand that swiftly takes out the prop cuffs,

They work just as well as normal ones, you find that out once he locks you in them, hands behind your back, just over your red, bruised ass thats on full display for him, he's got you snapped in half over the bed, face muffled in the sheets,

"Bad" spank "fucking" spank "slut" spank

Each one elicits another moan from you, the pain of each increasingly hard slap makes your pussy throb with need,

"I'm sorry sir" you whine into the sheets, hands squirming in the restrains,

Jungkook smirks, getting on his knees and putting his large hands on your cheeks, spreading them to glance at your glistening cunt, practically dripping wet for him, only from a few spanks,

"Yeah you're sorry? Too fucking bad, you're gonna take this punishment until you can't beg anymore" he rasps, landing another harsh spank to your reddened skin

"Please sir, please" you're pleas are meaningless to the man on his knees, roughly pushing two of his long digits into your throbbing cunt, finally allowing you some stimulation

"greedy slut" he says upon noticing the way your back arches, pushing your hips back into his touch, his fingers are knuckles deep into you, vigorously fucking into your femininity,

Jungkook's eyes roll back at the little cries you let out, usually he isn't this rough with you, however, something about having you plead for him, completely at his mercy, does something to him,

Besides, he knew to look out for if you'd mutter the word "rabbit"

For now, none of you have plans to stop, instead he leans in, sucking on your clit that's begging for attention, grazing his teeth over the sensitive skin, your thighs shake at the intensity, feeling his fingers burried deep into you, the pleasure on your clit and your hard nipples rubbing into the bed below you all adds up to that pool building in your belly,

"Sir, sir please please i'm so close please sir" begging, whimpering helplessly at your boyfriends skilled mouth and fingers, the orgasm is so close, clenching tightly around his digits,

"Too bad, you don't deserve it yet" harshly, he retracts everything, pulling his fingers out rapidly and leaving your cunt drenched and pulsing for the release that was so close to coming,

"No no no sir no- please, please i'm sorry i'm sorry officer" you whine, the sound coming from deep within your throat, arms flalling in the restrains that tug at your wrists, frustrated that you can't move,

You never wanted to claw at his body more than you do now, the aching of your core unbareable when the cold gushes of air hit it,

He spanks you again, aiming it at your cunt this time, sharp pain stings you for a brief second before turning to pleasure that worsens your aching

"Mhhh!"

"yeah that´s it" groaning at the sight of your wet inner thighs, he can´t ignore the straining in his briefs any longer

"Turn around, on your knees" commanding and sultry, you knew better than to disobey him, much to your unfortune, the current position makes it difficult to get up first.

so he helps you by the hips, a sliver of mercy that slips through the roleplay as he sits down and watches you kneel between his legs,

Finally in the position he wants you in, your clit is twitching, thighs pressed together tightly for some pressure, any kind of relief

Tension rises, his veiny hands work to pull his cock out from beneath the uniform, he takes it in his hand, the other one grabs your throat, squeezing tightly

"You're gonna take my cock down that loud mouth, understand?" intimated and aroused, you whimper out a response, glacing up at his sharp eyes full of desire,

"yes sir, understood"

"Look how good you can be. Needy slut, you need to behave more" his hand releases your throat, cupping your jaw instead

Silence takes over the two of you, he pushes his thumb into your mouth, listening to you suck on it, his eyes wander to your perky chest, puffed out from the posture of having your hands tief behind your back,

Jungkook pulls his thumb out, taking the hand to grip some hair at the back of your head to push you forward, now directly in front of his stiff cock,

Your eyes remain on his, big and pleading with him wordless, for him to go easy on you

"Look at that , you look so sad baby. S'what you get for being such a slut. Bad fucking girl that you were" his husky, desire painted voice sends pleasure through your body, no matter how cruel the words are, you love hearing them, you love knowing what comes after this cruelty

His thick tip slaps against your lips, small groans already spilling from the pretty man's lips, "open that mouth will you? Usually you have so much to say"

Complying, "i'm sorry officer", and that's enough for his cock to twitch, the hand on your head tightening, pushing you down on his length

You gag around him immediately, tears pooling in your eyes, his entire, girthy cock is stuffed down your throat. So much so that you're nose is making contact to his pelvis

"oh god, fuck baby" he groans, his hips bucking into you, the tip of him hitting the back of your warm throat even more, mind slipping with how good it feels to have you this deep on to him

another little gag noise gets surpressed by his dick as he pushes your head up again, before sinking you back down all the way,.

Your wet hole throbs with emptiness at the feeling of him in your mouth, and the groans he lets out once you start rapidly bobbing your head up and down on him, his bottom lip is trembling, tucked between his teeth head thrown back slightly while his muscular thighs flex under the blue fabric,.

Jungkook feels so fucking blissed out, your tight, warm and wet throat keeps contracting on his cock, tongue pressing flat to the side of him. he tries his best to keep his vision, watching your thighs pressed together, your tits jumping with ever move, the way your cheeks redden with the heat, he loves it, he chases after it, pulling on the strands of your hair even more

"thats's it, such a slut, taking cock like this" he rasps, bucking his hips up to meet your mouth with every push down, he feels his tip twitch, but before he releases, he stops, harshly pulling your head away from him

Finally breathing after being forced away from his cock, you cough, tears brimming in your eyes, your hair is all messed up and your wrists tug at the cuffs, you're a mess, and he knows just how desperate you are

"I'm so sorry sir please give me your cock, please i'm begging i need it so much" you plead with him again, pressing your cheek to his covered thigh for a break, the desperation in your voice is undeniable,

"Up then, bend back over the bed"

you do as your told, determined to finally, finally get rewarded with having your pussy stuffed,

His hand presses down to your lower back, arching you into the bed once again, you moan for him, silently begging for him to fuck you stupid,

jungkook slaps his wet cock against your ass a couple times, moaning as he does so before finally filling you up with each inch of him, stretching you to adjust to him,

he doesn´t allow you time to do so, immediately thrusting his hips into you, pushing you forward each time just by the sheer force,

"my slutty cunt, this is mine baby, feel that? feel how fucking full you are?" his jaw clenches, tensed at the wet sounds that fade into your combined moans, the rattle of your bound wrists catching his attention,

"fuck! yes, god so full sir, so full"

"that´s it, i fucked you right huh? not a brat anymore baby are you now?" he growls, finding that soft spongy spot deep into you, hitting it repeatedly to hear you cry out

"right there! right there please please kook please" tears pool at your eyes, the pleasure almost melting into pain from being so much, but it´s so fucking good that you can´t help but get lost in it,

"Right there huh? aren´t you such a good girl now?" his words get sloppier as do his thrusts, the clenching of your warm walls around him is making him feel tight, one of his large palms moves to gather a fistful of your messy hair, tugging on it to pull you further on his merciless hips

"yes! yes such a good girl now officer" incoherently you stutter the words out, drooling into the sheets with no thought whatsoever and before you can even register it, your legs tremble, that dreaded knot in your lower belly snaps and you cum around him, whimpering in overstimulation when he doesn´t stop,

luckily, the feeling of you growing wetter along him is enough to let go with a couple more thrusts, stuttering out curses beneath his heavy breaths,

it´s only now that you notice just how much your arms ache, having been restraint in the cuffs for a good time now, your shoulders also start feeling heavy,

"baby.. the cuffs please" your soft words flip a switch inside of him, pulling his drenched cock out and working to undo your restraint with his trembling fingers,

"so sorry baby, my poor baby, does it hurt a lot?" he asks, genuine worry tainting his tone, he watches you drop your arms to your sides, curling your irritated wrists a couple times,

"it´s okay.. just sore" you sigh, pushing yourself back on your weak legs, arms feeling almost numb at the sudden movements,

jungkook is quick to catch your in his arms, wrapping them around your unstable body and gently placing you back on your soft bed

upon noticing just how worn out you look, he frowns, taking your wrists and kissing them tenderly, "I´m so sorry sweetheart, you look so exhausted, are you sure i didn´t hurt you?" trying to further soothe you, gentle caresses wander from your cheek to your jaw, the peaceful, quiet ambiance that is surrounding you gives you a chance to breathe, finally processing the intensity of what the last mere minutes were,

with a rather conservative voice, you snuggle closer and answer your boyfriend, "a little overwhelmed i guess? i don´t know.. any my arms are so sore too.."

He cooes, softly stroking your hair as he begins whispering sweet nothings, reassuring you of his love and that he didn´t mean all those harsh, mean words,

apologizing in his eyes consists of actions, so he made sure to spend the night holding you close, massaging your poor aches with his kisses

[lovebugism]

Play wrestling with bff Steve and getting giggly when he just straight up manhandles you 😭😭😭

✶ ┄ SORE LOSER !

summary: steve harrington doesn't like to let you win until he realizes how good it feels to lose. pairing: best friend!steve harrington / f!reader word count: 1.6k warnings: a lil bit suggestive towards the end, but nothing crazy a/n: i got super carried away with this lol i kinda just took this request and ran with it and well... here we are :) enjoy!

Steve never lets you win. 

He thinks it’s letting you off too easy.

The boy’s competitive to a fault. He can’t stomach a loss, even if it’s in something as meaningless as a carnival game you only wanted to play for the giant dinosaur plushie that’s half the size of you. 

He always ends up giving it to you when he inevitably wins, wearing a big smug smile on his pretty, pink lips. You take it from him with a pout. The childlike scowl is quelled only by the funnel cake he buys you after.

It doesn’t matter what it is — a game of monopoly, trivia questions on the ends of popsicle sticks, taking in the groceries — Steve finds a way to make all of it competitive. He wants to have the most fake money and little fake properties, he wants to shout the answer before anyone else can, he wants to carry more heavy plastic bags than everyone else. Just to say that he did it.

If you put this much effort into school, you’d be in college right now, Harrington, you’d tease.

Not my fault you’re a sore loser, he’d retort. I’ll let you win the next one, sunshine. Promise.

He never does.

You and Steve play-wrestle like a couple of kids. It usually comes out of nowhere. You’ll make fun of him, he’ll shove at you, and you’ll shove back harder. Then it just turns into a game of who’s stronger than who — and it’s always him. Obviously. 

You try your hardest to prove your strength, pushing at him with nimble fists and wriggling something fierce in his hold, but you come out red-faced with a participation ribbon laced within his taunts. And even though he’s got several inches on you and quite a bit more muscle, he never lets you win. Ever.

He manhandles you, perhaps a little too rough at times, but it wasn’t like he had to be kind to you. You weren’t dating or anything, you were best friends — this is what a couple of pals do, right?

They play fight on the carpet of the other’s movie room after being told their closest confidant would murder them in a game of fuck, marry, kill between Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. with zero hesitation.

Friends totally force the other onto the ground by grabbing at the bottoms of their thighs before kneeling over them, wrenching their wrists in their grip and pressing their hands to the ground on either their head.

It’s the definition of being best buds. Truly.

For the first time, you manage to get the better of him. You’re pressed beneath his weight, breathing heavy and rapidly tiring, and you wave the white flag of surrender.

Just when Steve's letting you up and swiping a hand through his mussed hair, you force him onto his back and straddle his waist — like he always did to you — and giggle with mirth at the idea of finally beating him.

He doesn’t find a similar enthusiasm in it, though. His tune changes almost immediately.

You beam down at him, the words of a taunt on the tip of your tongue, and you notice how his cheeks flare pink. His honey-colored eyes widen and his mouth falls softly agape. He glows red in embarrassment and you think he’s just upset that he lost, but he sounds like he’s panicking. The words rush out of his mouth — “Alright, shit, fine— you win, sunshine. Get off, alright? Off, off, off.” 

His hand swats at the side of your knee to hurry you off him.

“Alright, jeez!” you concede with the roll of your eyes, halfway annoyed that he just can’t let you win anything. “You don’t have to be such a sore loser about it, Harrington—”

You understand his haste in that moment, when you feel him brush your inner thigh. Like, all of him — as in, the boner trapped in the sweatpants he’s wearing, all rock hard and raging in its cotton confines.

Suddenly, you’re just as bashful and panicked as he is. 

Your eyes lock at the rock hard realization but neither of you can think of anything to say.

Do you apologize? Do you act like you didn’t feel anything? Do you trust your voice to make a stupid joke so you can move on and forget any of this ever happened? You’re not quite sure.

And in the five-second silence, Steve just wants to die. Internally, he’s praying for a strike of lightning to take him out on the spot because he’s never been more embarrassed in his life.

He’s certain that he’s grossed you out, or worse, made you irreversibly uncomfortable.

In the mess of thoughts running through his head, he tries to rush out some apology that might soothe the awkward air. Your laughter does all the work for him before he can.

It bubbles like sunshine from your mouth, filling the silence and allowing Steve to breathe again. He finds himself chuckling under his breath with you, though he’s still red-faced about it.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep laughing, sunshine,” he chides with the roll of his eyes, though a smile hints at the edges of his mouth. He rises on his elbows to look at you. “What was I supposed to do? Your tits were in my face and your ass was on my dick— sorry for being human!”

“Sorry, alright? I’m sorry,” you manage through hearty giggles. You settle finally at his side and look over at him, still grinning. “Want me to leave so you can… take care of it or whatever?”

He knows you’re joking but he shakes his head anyway. “Nah, it’ll go away. Let’s just… finish this stupid movie.”

“Stupid movie? You picked it!”

“Yeah, so I could see Kelly Lebrock in a bikini!” he argues back, more thankful for the familiar bickering than he ever thought he’d be. “But you made me miss it!”

“It’s not my fault you can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

“Watch it, sunshine,” he grumbles, half-heatedly. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“I think you’re the one who needs to worry about finishing, Harrington,” you joke and giggle when he shoves you.

You would’ve helped him, if he wanted you to. You know it’s uncomfortable and that it’s partially your fault. You also know that all of those are just excuses to cover up the fact that you’ve always wondered what his cock looks like.

He’d need only ask you, but you know that he won’t.

Even if he did like you in that way, it’d just make things all complicated. And that was totally the opposite of the effortless relationship you’ve developed with him. The kind of effortless where he can be rock hard next to you, and you’ve both decided to just move on from it.

Steve, meanwhile, spends the rest of the movie not watching a single damn minute of it. He’s too busy trying to calm himself down like a teenage boy and figuring out he can get you on top of him again without being too obvious about the whole thing.

He decides he might just start swallowing his pride and let you win sometimes.

[7-wonders]

whenever the fates called morpheus love or dear it just gives me this image of morpheus coming to meet reader at their volunteer job at an old peoples home and all the elderly ladies giggling and calling him such a handsome man and why if they were a few decades younger they'd have him for themselves you're standing in the background not knowing how to reply to any of that

(This was like pulling teeth. When will my ability to write return from war?)

There are many little quirks when it comes to being in a relationship with a primordial, all-powerful being such as Dream of the Endless. One such instance is that time does not run the same for an Endless as it does for a human. Morpheus can lose minutes, hours, days to his duties between one blink and the next.

The Dreaming, that fantastical kingdom that your lover rules over, runs on the same logic. You can spend what feels like an hour in the Dreaming, only for it to be an entire day later in the Waking. Likewise, weeks in the Dreaming can be merely an hour in the Waking. It's disconcerting to creatures that have lived far longer than you.

All of this is to say that your meetings often don't have a specific date or time when they're in the Waking, simply because Morpheus doesn't know. He tries, though it's difficult: clocks do not work in the Dreaming, and Matthew is too important a raven to be constantly flying to the Waking to check the time so that Morpheus can "run off" (Matthew's words) with you. You've actually started to look forward to the spontaneity—it helps that he usually gets lucky and catches you when you're home or alone and don't have to worry about explaining how he just randomly appeared out of thin air.

Though it's rare, him coming to the Waking to see you and you being in public has happened before. This time, he shows up when you're just finishing up at the retirement home you volunteer at a couple times a month—you're in charge of what's supposed to be a crossword puzzles group, but what is mainly just a gossip group.

Most mortals aren't able to see Morpheus when he doesn't want to be seen. You're not most mortals, however, and you've gotten pretty damn good at sensing when he's around, which is why you're the only one that notices him lurking in the corner closest to the door.

"Hi," you mouth, trying and failing to hide your grin as you give him a discreet wave.

Your excitement must be palpable, because the women quickly pick up on it and thus catch sight of a tall, dark, and handsome stranger across the room. Ethel, the boldest of the group by far, grabs your arm and yanks you down to her level. "Is that the boyfriend?"

"Yes, that's the boyfriend."

They all know about the boyfriend because you've gushed about your beloved to this little group more than a few times. How can you not, though? Especially when you're surrounded by those who enjoy living vicariously through you and thus cajole you into sharing such stories about your love life.

"She thought he was fake, y'know," Ida informs you.

"Did not!" Ethel retorts. "I was just curious because you never showed us any pictures!"

"I've told you before that Morpheus is a little camera-shy." You don't actually know if that's the case or not; you just haven't yet figured out how to ask the anthropomorphic personification of dreams and nightmares if he wants to take a cute couple's selfie.

"Morpheus! Oh, how exotic." The little group titters, thrilled at having learned his name.

The man (-shaped being) of the hour has moved, placing a hand on your lower back so as to not frighten you when he suddenly stands next to you. You smile up at him and are greeted with the smallest of smiles in return while the sounds of your seniors oohing and aahing fade into mere background noise. Surroundings tend to become meaningless when you see Morpheus; all that matters then is you and he.

Morpheus is the one to remind you that you have an audience when he turns his attention upon said audience. He bows his head politely and says, "I greet you, ladies."

As you expected, they go absolutely nuts when they hear his voice.

"Oh my!" Ida blushes.

Ethel beams. "Aren't you a handsome one!"

"Why, if I were a few decades younger..." Shirley, who has absolutely no filter whatsoever, winks at Morpheus.

You sputter, your eyes wide and blood rushing to your cheeks. "Shirley!"

"What? I have eyes!"

While you're ready to hide your face in your hands and die (maybe you should see if Death has a cell phone), Morpheus simply hums in amusement. "You are very kind."

"And you are a sweetheart."

"Okay, that does it for me today," you interrupt. It's not a lie; you were literally saying your goodbyes and on your way out before Morpheus arrived! "I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks."

"You bring Morpheus around any time, alright?"

You can't get out of there fast enough, and Morpheus lets you practically drag him towards the parking lot. Once you're out in the fresh air (and away from any of the windows that your favorite gals could be spying from), you bury your head in Morpheus's shoulder and groan.

"I'm sorry. That was so embarrassing," you lament.

"Why? They were...sweet, if not a little overt in their affections."

You lift your head up to meet his eyes. "That's why it was embarrassing, my love."

"You are very clearly dear to them. They simply want to see you happy."

"I'm assuming you know that with your super special dream magic?"

"Daydreams and hopes are quite loud, starlight." He smirks because you know damn well just how loud some daydreams can be (specifically yours when you're thinking about Morpheus) before pressing his lips to your forehead.

"Well, you're certainly in their good graces now. They've been so nosy since they found out I'm seeing someone."

"So I lived up to their expectations, then?"

Now it's your turn to smirk. "Baby, you were beyond their wildest dreams."

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for criticizing the way my(27m) boyfriend(22m) compliments me?

It's a matter of how often (too often, imo), and the manner of "compliment." He calls it "being nice to me" but on my end, it simply feels too vague to really be about me, and more specifically it's the kind of thing that a fictional character would say about their loved one while delirious on cold medicine or something, except my bf is usually awake and sober when he does this, and it's every single day.

More specifically and objectively: "You're beautiful to me." "You're like an angel." "You're so important to me." etc. A lot of "to me"s. And quite genuinely, it's basically always said like someone kinda high on morphine? though at absolute worst he's kinda tired, and he'll still say it like that if he's perfectly awake.

It's this sort of thing every day, with this sort of jokingly lofty language, always when I don't feel I've done anything in particular to warrant it. Like, *I* never say stuff like this in a situation that isn't already deeply intimate and significant, but he says it seemingly just in response to me existing next to him. And for a while I smiled along and said thank you and I love you too but after some time it just started to run together so much that I got deeply annoyed by it and started telling him to stop. When I do he becomes upset and starts to say that he's just trying to be nice, and I try to explain that it's just the same thing every day and it feels kind of meaningless. But he just goes on about how it's insane that i'm critiquing his compliments.

From what he tells me, it seems on his end of things he's technically being genuine and it's just a kind of limited vocabulary that makes his communication of his love for me Like That. I just still kind of can't stand hearing the same sort of fake-sounding "compliment" every single day at random times where they don't feel like they belong and I feel like I'm going crazy. I feel like I can't even explain my side with more depth to him without him getting more seriously upset, but he doesn't seem motivated to actually stop at all even though I've brought it up many times.

Some added context: We've been together for about 2 years and these sort of compliments with the frequency that I'm complaining about is relatively recent, for the past maybe 3-4 months. I am in fact his first partner, and I definitely see how that factors into him wanting to say things like this to me. It's just the like... continuing to do it.

AM I crazy? I really can't tell who's the normal one here. But like... I just want to actually earn it if I'm gonna get told something like that. And I feel like it would inherently mean more if he saved it FOR those moments that I earned it. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Hey, psst. Want to hear about one of my more meaningless pet peeves?

You know the Moomins, right? A few years ago the answer might've been no, but after the popularity of Moominvalley (2019) the Moomin franchise seems to have gained popularity outside of Europe and Japan. In any case, Moomins follows the adventures of hippo-like "trolls" in book, comic, TV show and movie form, animated, stop motion and live action alike. One of my very favourite characters from the Moomins is Edward the Booble.

(First image from here, the rest pulled from the episode Adventures of Moominpappa: Part 1)

My first introduction to him was in the animated Moomin (1990) series, and wow!!! What a creature, I'm sure you can assume why I immediately took a liking! A gigantic, reptilian beast, magnificently suited for aquatic living with his long body and finned tail! In this series it's even implied that he might be a dragon or related to dragons (this is not a feature of other Moomin series or books though) which made him infinitely cooler to me. Despite being the second largest creature on Earth he's always described to be a very friendly guy, if he ever steps on a person by accident he always pays for the funeral costs, they say.

Edward has other interpretations of himself, naturally, given the long lifespan of the Moomins as a franchise and the fact that he made his actual debut in the book Moominpappa's Memoirs. This is him as illustrated in the book:

(Image from here)

In the stop motion show The Moomins (1977) he looks like this:

(Image from The Moomins episode Edward the Booble)

The comics take perhaps the greatest divergence, as in those he looks like this:

(Image taken from here)

...Still pretty similar, usually.

Fortunately for me, despite his rather few appearances in any Moomin property, he gets his own spotlight in the Moomin World park! ...There's a theme park, by the way. Two parks, one in Naantali, Finland, one in Hanno, Japan. I'm talking about the Naantali park in this case, a place I've gone to significantly more than the average person. ^^' As you saw, certain characters (and places) look extremely different interpretation to interpretation, so Moomin World most closely sticks to the 90's animated show if there's any conflicting designs. This is Edward at the park, he floats near the Moomins' "bathing hut":

(Image from here)

Now look at that! Naturally they couldn't have made him a gigantic looming beast, but this is really darn close to how he is in the 90's series. He looks a lot like a long-necked dinosaur, I really enjoy his individually molded scales and hair strands, and his sort of claylike texture. It makes him look like he was brought into the real world straight from a cartoon: a look that's just right for the Moomin World! Just look at his face!!!

(Image from here)

A real big sweetie!!!! He's obviously fake, yet he feels real anyway. It's the way that he's shaped so naturally, how his raised neck and tail and arched back create a shape that flows from body part to part. It’s the way each part of him is textured, even in the parts of him where he lacks scales there’s a subtle unevenness to his surface, and certain features are raised. Despite being a purple yellow-haired reptilian creature he's very much like a real animal! All in all an excellent adaptation.

“Wait,” you might be thinking. “This is all good things. You like the Edward at the park. Where’s the pet peeve?”

You’d be quite right! All of this is indeed well and good, but that’s because I’ve withheld one crucial detail.

That is not Edward the Booble at the Moomin Park.

Not anymore. He was replaced some time ago, with an all new design.

Currently, Edward looks like this:

(Top image from here, bottom image from here)

......

What in the world. Do you see that??? Edward looks like his spine was mangled. I presented you with several different versions of Edward before so you could compare: does he look like any of his adaptations? Certainly not. He has never been a sea serpent!! Nevermind this ridiculously long snake torso, he's always depicted as having a long neck and tail but a normal, plump body. See those things shittily painted on his side? Those are fins! When did he ever have fins!!!?????

All of those wonderful sculpted scales have been replaced with an all smooth surface. His body's surface texture is instead communicated through paint. I do think the paint job is quite pretty as his colouration gets some variation (reminds me of a story book illustration, likely they were going for that look), but see how much the light reflects off of his plastic surface? When his scales were actually there, you'd see their shadows, but now that they went for an all smooth design he looks cheap, like any other theme park plastic statue out there. He looks factory-made. It makes his newly added fins appear like an afterthought, nevermind his hair that shifts from three-dimensional to painted on halfway down his neck. I suppose they just didn't feel like painting his hair all the way down his back like it is in Moomin...

I suppose his quizzical look is pretty cute, but yeeeouch that neck!!!! It has that weird bend right in the middle, and it's so skinny and short compared to his body. It widens so much at the bottom, he's like a watering can, man! His head is far too small and a real weird shape, though I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps his weird bulging teeth? They're awfully big in his mouth when previously they were more in proportion.

They insisted on this weird long noodle body and yet he doesn't even flow nicely anymore. There's an awkward hump between the neck and the body, and at the end of his body where logically his form would rise up, it instead straightens out for a bit, then his tail raises.

Now, obviously this is extremely minor in the grand scheme of things. I seldom bother myself with thoughts of the new Edward the Booble — only now did I get the idea of making a Tumblr post about this, lmao. This is just another case of “man, now why would they do that >:(“ rather than anything big. Because, really… man, now why would they do that!! Had a perfectly good Booble before. Perfect down to every last detail. Now he’s been replaced by some imposter! >:(

[bigdumbbambieyes]

"What is it?" Billy asks when he sits down on the couch. Steve is practically buzzing, hair tousled and he's jumping from one leg onto the other.

"Happy birthday," Steve blurts out.

Billy glares at him. "The shitbird's in trouble."

He doesn't celebrate his birthday. He doesn’t do confetti and party hats. It all became meaningless, when she left. It's probably always been fake.

"I tricked her, it's not her fault." Steve sucks at lying.

"You tricked Max," Billy scoffs. "Not in a million years, Harrington."

Steve purses his lips at his last name. "Thanks for the confidence."

"Nobody can trick her," Billy assures him.

"No cake for you," Steve snaps.

"There's cake?" Billy straightens his back. He hasn't had cake for his birthday in years.

"Yep." Steve popps the P, hand in his hips. "Cherry pie!"

He tries to still look insulted, but Billy can see the proud smile tugging at his lips.

"You really are a keeper," Billy says. He means it, even though hen

Steve's face lights up. He's so pretty, Billy thinks.

Steve winks at him as if he knows what he thinks and goes to get the cake. It's a gigantic thing, sweet scent heavy in the air, making Billy's mouth water. There's are two candles on top.

"One looked lonely," Steve explains with a sheepish grin.

Billy wants to kiss him. So he does.

"Thanks," he says, throat tight. Maybe he owes Max for that. Maybe birthdays aren't too bad - at least with Steve.

Happy Birthday, Bambi!! Sending you good vibes and confetti <3

ANNNN 😭🤍😭🤍

this is so beyond sweet!! Steve getting Billy’s birthday from Max is SO GOOD hehe i love how Billy instantly saw through his pretty boy’s lie kdnfkfn and the HUGE CAKE WITH TWO CANDLES?!? i’m crying, i’m dead

thank you so much for this, i adore your writing so this is an extra special present!! 🥹

[callingbridgerton]

"Colin didn't earn Penelope."

Ummmmm.

Okay. So, let's just start by saying that Colin Bridgerton did nothing wrong by simply not feeling the same way about Penelope for so long. I am so serious. Even if he never returned her feelings, he wouldn't have done something wrong. But that's not the story we're watching. They're meant for each other, but he didn't know that. That is not wrong of him.

He has done only one thing wrong, ever (to Penelope): give into his insecurities, alter his true self, and give way to a fake version of himself that wants to be accepted by the wrong people and make a hurtful comment to "the boys" about her.

Which he apologized for the moment he knew she knew. It is sad, indeed, that he didn't realize on his own how hurtful that was but even if he had, given that he didn't know she knew, what purpose would there be in him going "uh, I made a really mean comment about you recently and I feel bad about it." Like what? That'd be harder to come back from than how it actually played out.

Now, I don't even want to talk about this because it annoys me how annoyed people are and I have seen it calming down but I think this is worth saying. Some people, I know, are really frustrated with Colin visiting brothels and having "experiences" on his travels. Especially those that have read the books (I haven't.) I know that people were attached to Virgin!Colin, but since I never even thought about that I just didn't care. Show Colin has not offended me, it is not my favorite thing in the world but I think people's primary problem with it is that they wanted Colin and Pen to be on the same exact page when they got together (virgins.) That's very cute and sweet as an idea but show Colin lives in a time period that does not at all expect that of him and in fact expects the opposite. In his quest to take on a new persona he attempts meaningless sex as well but we are shown over and over again that he's just not that into it. He's so confused, he knows it's "supposed" to work for him (as it does/did for his brothers and friends) but it just doesn't.

I also think a lot of people have a problem with it simply because they consider him promised to Penelope when he is not. He just isn't (even though he is.) But he didn't know that!!! He had literally no idea. He didn't cheat on her, he didn't break a promise, he didn't do anything wrong. He was just trying to figure himself out.

In reality, Colin has done nothing but be exceedingly kind to Penelope. A true friend. He has shown nothing but reverence for her all throughout season 1 and 2. And 3. He earned her through being her friend, the only one who truly listens to her and notices her bright mind and kind heart and warm soul. He is literally the only one. Eloise, maybe, but tbh she doesn't truly realize how amazing Pen is (IMO).

Colin didn't need to do anything else. He apologized for his mistakes and showed through actions how much he meant it.

He has earned her since the day they met.

[riddlerosehearts]

list of acd canon sherlock holmes things i absolutely love

(and am going to mostly put under a readmore because i made most of this list while rereading the entire canon so it is very long! listen i just think sherlock holmes is the best character ever and i need to share my love for him--)

immediately upon being introduced to watson he grabs him by the sleeve, starts excitedly showing off his bloodstain testing experiment, and claps his hands “looking as delighted as a child with a new toy”. once he finishes, his eyes glitter and he puts his hand on his heart and bows “as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination”.

watson: “i object to rows because my nerves are shaken”

holmes: “do you include violin playing in your category of rows?” he asked, anxiously

he’s noted to be extraordinarily knowledgeable and zealous in his studies, and yet on the same page it’s stated that he doesn’t know the earth travels around the sun and once watson tells him about it he immediately decides to forget about it because it’s not relevant to his work. this is where the famous “brain attic” monologue comes in.

watson writes this list about him and then throws it into the fire in despair:

has a habit of laughing in a way that’s described as bursting into an “explosion” or “roar” of laughter

frequently does this at crime scenes:

enlists a gang of street orphans to help him on his cases, pays them for their work, and generally treats them as equals but also playfully talks to them like a general to his soldiers

plays the violin for watson to help him get to sleep

is incredibly knowledgable on anything from different types of tobacco, to the ways one's trade can influence the form of their hands, to medieval pottery and stradivarus violins. and yet, i reiterate, does not know the earth revolves around the sun.

has a tendency of waxing poetic about the meaningless of existence, particularly when he’s bored from not having any cases to work on

once said about a dog “i would rather have toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of london”

used the word “doggy” when speaking to toby

once told watson “i don’t wish to be theatrical” despite all evidence to the contrary

disguises himself as an old man just to play a prank on watson

watson: “i think i had better go”

holmes: “not at all, doctor. stay where you are. i am lost without my boswell.”

is known to wiggle in his chair when he gets excited about a case

discovers that a man has tricked his own stepdaughter into a fake marriage so he can keep her at home and control her life and inheritance. acknowledges that said man hasn’t done anything illegal but still tells him “there never was a man who deserved punishment more” and that he ought to get whipped for what he did, and then goes to actually get his hunting crop, causing the man to run out the door at top speed

let a criminal go free because it turned out the man he murdered was trying to force said criminal’s daughter into an unwanted marriage

was suddenly made to participate in the wedding of someone he was tracking for a case, came home and laughed about it for several minutes, exclaimed “well, really!”, laughed for several more minutes, and only then did he actually tell watson what happened

responds to the king of bohemia insulting irene adler and saying she’s not on his level by saying coldly: “from what i have seen of the lady, she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your majesty”, which is basically him saying “actually she’s way better than you, so fuck off”

refused to shake said king’s hand

built a pillow fort in a client’s house so he could think better

let a poor jewel thief go because he cried, because it was christmas and therefore it was the season of forgiveness, and because the case was really easy anyway so it’s not his fault if the police are too stupid to solve it themselves

always reassures clients that they can trust him and watson and speak freely around them

is willing to waive his fee for clients who can’t afford to pay him, because according to him his profession is its own reward

this entire scene from speckled band when he gets confronted by his client’s abusive stepfather:

this nice little example of the gentleness he often displays with his clients:

the adventure of the copper beeches. just, all of it. a woman he doesn’t know comes to holmes for advice about a potential job she’s interviewed for and they both agree it sounds incredibly sketchy, she says she’s gonna take it anyway because she needs the money, and he’s like “well i wouldn’t want any sister of mine doing something like this but FINE i guess, just please write to us and let us know if you’re okay and if anything bad happens we’ll drop everything and come help you immediately”, and then the job does in fact turn out to be super sketchy and they drop everything and get on a train as soon as she writes to them

sometimes spends several hours out on walks through the park or the town with watson just relaxing and talking with him for the sake of it, despite watson frequently noting that holmes doesn’t have much appreciation for nature

“we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. i trust that we may do the same for you,” he says “in his easy, genial way” to a potential client who’s clearly very upset and sleep-deprived

is completely wrong about a particular case and asks watson to remind him of that case next time he gets overconfident

is noted by watson to be very neat and methodical in his methods and way of dress, while simultaneously being one of the messiest people ever who keeps his tobacco inside a persian slipper and his unopened letters held up by a knife in the center of his mantelpiece, keeps tons of criminal relics which apparently somehow end up in the butter dish sometimes, and keeps countless stacks of papers and documents all over the place

tells watson anecdotes about his past just to avoid cleaning up said documents

deliberately knocks over a table, shattering a glass fruit bowl which then sends oranges rolling all over the room, and then blames it on watson and runs away

says snarky things like “when gregson or lestrade are out of their depth–which, by the way, is their normal state” and “you’ve done very well, watson! it’s too bad you’ve missed everything of importance”

laughs when watson suggests he’s being modest about his abilities

picked up a rose and got all sappy and poetic about it

more specifically, picked up a rose and said that religion can be a science which involves a lot of careful deduction, and that flowers are a source of hope and proof of the goodness of god due to the fact that they aren’t a necessary part of life but are still so beautiful anyway

recovered an incredibly valuable government treaty for a client and had it served to him on a platter at breakfast because, in his own words, he “never can resist a touch of the dramatic”

faked his death and then revealed to watson that he was still alive in a manner that even he admitted was unnecessarily dramatic

had a full-scale wax model of himself created and used it to fool his enemies

made a diagram out of breadcrumbs to explain something to watson

broke into a blackmailer’s house for a case because he believed it to be morally justifiable, and admitted that he always thought he might make a good criminal

held watson’s hand while they were burgling said house together

twice

allowed said blackmailer to be murdered in front of him by one of his victims and then refused to take the case when asked because he just hated the guy that much

“flushed up with pleasure” when watson complimented him

asked watson to sell his medical practice and move back into 221b with him after the death of his wife. and then secretly gave a relative of his a ton of money to buy watson’s medical practice at the highest price watson would ask for, just so they could live together again

was nearly brought to tears by lestrade saying he was proud of him

let a dog lead him around on a case, multiple times in different stories

was very gentle with a client who he knew to be the victim of an abusive marriage and allowed the man who killed her husband to go free out of sympathy for their situation

noticed watson looking sad and touching his war wound and tried to cheer him up by echoing his thoughts and providing a deduction of how he knew what he was thinking

mentioned watson’s sparkling eyes in said deduction

talked about nothing but violins and his favorite violinist for an hour while he and watson had lunch together

likes going to classical music concerts and getting lost in the music

does scrapbooking

chuckles and rubs his hands together when he’s happy

this:

takes getting called "the devil himself" as a compliment

let a killer go because he had only killed in retaliation for the unjust murder of his lover, and holmes felt that he might’ve done the same if someone were to kill the woman he loved

on a completely unrelated note tells a guy who shoots watson “if you had killed watson you would not have got out of this room alive”

also reacted like this when watson got shot:

went undercover to supposedly give a guy secret government intelligence documents, and then gave him a book about bees instead

frequently disguised himself either for cases or just to fool watson and was noted to be a great actor

once disguised himself as an old woman with a parasol

tried the best he could to talk a young woman out of marrying a man who had a history of “collecting” women for sport and destroying their lives, and admitted to watson that he thought of her as he would think of his own daughter

was prone to “imp-like moods”

sent watson a message to come over at once ("if convenient--if inconvenient come all the same") just so he could infodump to him about dogs

wasn’t surprised that a dog died of grief shortly after its owner’s death, because of “the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs”

listened with great sympathy to a depressed woman who wanted to tell him her tragic story, picked up on hints that she was planning to commit suicide, talked her out of it by convincing her that her life does have value and then called her brave for choosing to live

got lost in thought looking out the window at the publicly funded elementary schools and randomly went on about how he believes they and the children who attend them are beacons of a brighter future

made hot cocoa for watson

shook hands with a baby

retired to the countryside to live on a farm and become a beekeeper.

[rosemarycovet]

Billy loomis x reader who goes silent while arguing/is upset

-billy really cares and loves for you

-if he didn’t he wouldn’t be with you and it’s not in a fake way either

-you’re his top priority

-so he hates when you stay quiet especially if something has upset you

-he really doesn’t like when you guys argue because you just stay silent you don’t fight back or anything

-he would always have to reassure you either with his words or actions

-when ever you would cry billy would raise his hands to wipe your tears instead of hitting you like you thought he would

-you would always think billy saw you pathetic or way to sensitive when you would remain silent and would hit you but he never would hit or abuse you he cares for you to much to ever lay a finger on you

-when I say he cares for you I mean it he really does your all he has left in his eyes ever since his mother left him

-that’s why he hates when you stay silent he doesn’t want you ignoring your feelings or keeping them away from him

“it’s ok” you said to billy in a soft unsure voice

“no it’s not” billy said sternly

“talk to me (y/n/n) please”

-you would occasionally apologize for a lot of meaningless things

“you don’t need to apologize”

-would always reassure you he’s not leaving you when you overthought

-if he found out the reason you’re were upset was because of someone he would be so mad

-he would kill anyone that made you cry

-would glare daggers at the person

-he would kill them with his barehands it didn’t matter if he had the ghost face costume or not

-would never ever let you go to sleep mad at him or upset

you turned away from billy laying your head the opposite way from him not wanting him to see you cry as tears swelled up in your eyes “please don’t sleep mad at me just talk to me” billy would say to you

-his abandonment issues really kick in when you just look up at him with sad eyes as you stay silent

-he gets scared your upset at him and going to leave him and find someone better

“don’t just go silent on me let’s talk about it..I can’t loose you” billy would say in a shaky deep voice trying to get you to talk as he held you

-whenever you felt like a burden to billy or felt like your feelings didn’t matter he would drop everything he’s doing to let you vent

-it didn’t matter if he was hanging out with stu or doing homework he would drop it and let you talk to him

“you know I always have time for you” he would reassure you

-whenever he would raise his voice at you he would bring it down so quickly not wanting to scare you away

-he knows you hate it when he raises his voice

-you would hug him tight whenever you were upset or sad scared he was going to shove you away

“relax i’m not going anywhere” he would tell reassure the both of you

[themousefromfantasyland]

Damsel (2024): Movie Review

I will starting this by saying that the premise turned me off right by the start: the innocent princess offered in sacrifice to the dragon must find strength to face the beast all on her own.

It sounded like typical corporate feminism: Fairy tales are all about knights saving princesses from dragons. That's sexist. In our tale, the princess saves herself because she needs no man.

I was expecting a forced girl power movie, and even the initial opening narration turned me off.

But I was wrong.

This film is an atmospheric dark fairy tale that knows it's roots and use them to cleverly subvert the expectations of the public.

Does it have a shallow understanding of fairy tales? A little bit, but it reinvents pretty well the cliches and tropes that the audience is used to.

Most of the movie is Elodie, Millie Bobby Brown's character, trying to survive in the Dragon's lair, while simultaneously having visions of the Dragon's past victims and the crimes that the kingdom committed against the Dragon, starting this whole chain of human sacrifices. It's a pretty bold direction, and while I thought I would be quickly bored by it, the movie doesn't allow the scenes to feel boring or meaningless.

I also love how the movie doesn't try to frame women as just a innocent and guiltlessly monolith. We see the suffering of the innocent girls that perished in the ritual, the determination of the Elodie's Stepmother that is suspicious of the "wedding" and is trying to save her stepdaughter, and the ruthlessness of Queen Isabelle, that wants the rituals to continue in order to preserve her family's power. Even the dragon is nothing more that a vengeful mother tricked into being part of an insane cycle of revenge and death.

This is how you create a feminist fairy tale that isn't shallow, pandering, and fake.

It's a 10/10 movie for me, and one of the best feminist fairy tales of recent years.

@ariel-seagull-wings @mask131 @thealmightyemprex @princesssarisa

[solarmorrigan]

💘 for the ask game? Might have a preference for the dare kiss if the inspo strikes you... 👀

Inspo did, in fact, strike me (thank you for the prompt!)

💘 fake relationship / mutual pining / dared to kiss

Prompt from this post

CW: alcohol use

-

Eddie doesn’t know whose brilliant idea this was, but they owe him for emotional damages.

Like–

Look, Eddie had really only ever attended high school parties as a dealer, had had very little interest in them otherwise, and thus has never played any of those cheap excuses for a chance to swap spit that they called games. Not truth or dare, not seven minutes in heaven, and not—Eddie watches in dizzy fascination as the empty beer bottle twirls and twirls in the center of the circle—spin the bottle.

Except someone had suggested it, and the rest of them had been just drunk enough to decide it was a great idea and join in.

Except Eddie is pretty sure this game is supposed to be played with classmates you don’t really know; people you barely remember in the morning and whose eyes you can avoid in the hallways at school on the following Monday – not two girls Eddie helped save the world with, the boyfriend of one of the aforementioned girls (and possibly the boyfriend of the aforementioned boyfriend? Eddie’s not sure what’s going on there), three guys he’s been friends with since middle school, and–

–the bottle stops, and Robin lets out a whoop. It’s pointing to the spot directly to Eddie’s right, the spot filled with none other than–

Steve Harrington.

The current bane of Eddie’s existence, with his stupid, pretty face and his stupid, soft-looking hair and his stupid, dry sense of humor and the way he’s stupidly sweet to Eddie and the way he’s smiling at stupid, stupid Eddie right now, who has a stupid, embarrassing crush on the guy, and now Eddie has to kiss him because the beer bottle says so. It’s the law, or something.

Eddie swears he hasn’t actually had that much to drink; he’s pretty sure proximity to Steve just does this to his brain.

Steve keeps smiling at him, amused, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Well?” he goads gently, elbowing Eddie in the side. “You gonna back down, or are you gonna kiss me, Munson?”

And– okay, one, Eddie has never backed down from a dare in his life, mostly because he operates on at least seventy-five percent impulsive thought power, and two, there’s no way Eddie isn’t going to take the chance to kiss Steve. It might not be the way he wants, but it also might be the only chance he’s going to get, so he turns and curves a hand at the side of Steve’s jaw—to steady Steve or to steady himself or maybe because he just wants to touch—and leans in and presses his lips to Steve’s.

And he tries to keep it PG, alright? He tries to keep it close-mouthed and soft, as easy and meaningless as the short kiss Robin had laid on him a few moments ago that had made it his turn to spin the bottle in the first place – he tries, but then someone (maybe Gareth? Hard to say, the world outside of Steve and Eddie has gone a little wishy-washy) shouts, “You call that a kiss?” and, well–

Eddie’s never backed down from a dare in his life.

(And if this is the only opportunity he’s going to have to kiss Steve, he figures he might as well milk it for all it’s worth.)

So he tilts his head, and parts his lips, and finds that Steve’s tongue is already there, hot and wet and licking into his mouth like he’s starving for it, teasing Eddie’s tongue back into his own mouth and sucking, and–

Eddie pulls back before the embarrassing noise he can feel building up in his chest can work its way free. He blinks at Steve, who is staring right back, eyes wide and starry, pupils blown, his mouth still hanging open a little as he pants for air, his bottom lip full and shiny in a way that makes Eddie want to dive right back in and bite him a little bit.

In fact, he’s very close to doing just that until someone’s voice breaches their little bubble.

“Well, Steve?” Robin prods, sounding far too amused for anyone’s good. “Are you gonna take your turn?”

“Nah.” Steve shakes his head, eyes still trained on Eddie as he stands up. “I think I’m out. Eddie?”

Eddie’s on his feet before Steve can even finish saying his name. “Right behind you.”

And then Steve is smiling again, eager and maybe—dare Eddie think it—a little smitten, and he grabs Eddie’s hand to drag him somewhere a little more private, somewhere away from the catcalls coming at them from the circle of friends they’re leaving behind, who Eddie pays absolutely no mind to because finding the nearest clear surface he can crowd Steve against feels more important.

Eddie doesn’t know whose brilliant idea spin the bottle was, but he owes them a goddamn fruit basket.

[heartbeatbookclub]

I think probably the biggest thing that contributes to the thought that Monika's love isn't some great falsehood to me is actually how she talks about it after being deleted.

Like, okay, i understand everyone saying that she isn't interested in you, because she's actually not interested in you specifically. I've said this before; Monika knows virtually nothing about you. She only knows that you're real. Despite this, she says she is utterly in love with you, while making it clear that her entire existence absent you is completely meaningless to her, because she knows it isn't real. It's fairly easy to make the leap here and I definitely agree that Monika is more in love with the idea of you than with you specifically.

I however disagree with the notion that this love is somehow false.

I've talked about this a little bit in the past, and I have a few drafts somewhere going deeper into my thoughts on it, but I didn't like how they turned out, so I'm just gonna start fresh.

I think if you only look at Monika's actions leading up into Act 3 and what she says then, it's a little questionable how true her feelings are. She talks a lot and spends a lot of time trying to endear herself to the player while forcing them to choose her. And a lot of that talk is about how powerful her sense of nihilism is about the world around her, except you.

It's not hard to make the leap that the reason why she's so invested in you specifically is because you represent something real, where she is trapped somewhere fake. Even if she can't really escape, she's content with this being as close as she'll get.

She's sitting here, directly talking to someone she believes is real, trusting that they're there, and listening to her.

You could take us continuing to click through the text and potentially hitting the skip button as confirmation that we are indeed still here, but the important thing is she can't see us. She doesn't know anything about us, or what it really looks like for us, but she loves us anyway, because we are real.

That's it, isn't it? At that point she doesn't even love us. It's a front; it's a lie to try and get some sense of interaction with reality. She doesn't actually love us; she loves the idea of escape we present.

There's one major thing that suggests to me that it's more complicated than that.

After we delete her, her initial response is fear. Anger. Betrayal. After everything she sacrificed, all she dedicated to us, we delete her. We've killed her; only small vestiges of her influence remain. How cruel. How unjust.

We are truly sickening, aren't we?

...But she still loves us.

I think this is something people overlook about the situation here, and I really think it's indicative of something not a lot of people realize.

Monika has no reason to lie here. There's no reason to maintain any sort of facade; Monika is giving up. There is no escape from her prison. She is trapped and always will be. And you? Despite everything, despite all that she's done to be with you, all the love she's given?

You deleted her. You killed her. She opened her heart to you, and you rejected her.

She has nothing left. She's dying. You, her one reason for living, for doing any of this, rejected her. She fucked everything up. She regrets everything she did, realizing that she's ruined everything, and probably driven you to hate her as well. Regardless of if that's true, it's what she believes.

Monika is at the end of her rope. Yet still, even when the chips are down, even when she's lost all hope of escape, when she's given up completely, when she regrets everything, believes you hate her, and hates herself...

She still loves you.

I don't think Monika's feelings are in any way a front for something else. I think she truly does believe, more than anything, that she loves you, truly, from the bottom of her heart. I think it's better to say, rather than that she doesn't love you, she only loves what you represent, because she doesn't know anything about you, that she does love you, despite not knowing anything about you, because what she does know is enough to her. She knows (or at least believes) that you're here, that you've been here, and that you're still here, despite everything. You've spent this much time with her. You must truly be kind, and patient, and all these other things she's built up in this image of you in her head.

Despite everything. Despite your rejection of her.

She still loves you.

And it's that love that guides her on into introspection, forces her to come to terms with the fact that she's been acting selfishly this entire time. It's her love for you that makes her realize how horrible she's been, and leads to her regretting everything.

Because if you deleted her after all she sacrificed, there's only one explanation. You don't love her the same. In fact, you must hate her for what she's done. She's ruined everything as badly as she possibly could.

She still loves you, but she messed things up so badly that you hate her.

"How could I do that to someone I love...?"

She restores everyone on the assumption that things will work out if she's just gone.

Because she wants to give you what you want.

Because she still loves you.

Dan Salvato responded to this question in the r/DDLC AMA on Reddit, and when I first read that response it seemed like a huge...non-answer. And when you actually look at it, within the context of the question, I'm right, it doesn't really answer the heart of what the question's about, and it's always troubled me because of the way he worded it.

It takes the notion that Monika loves us for granted, and instead of actually addressing the question, provides a foundation for Monika's truly selfless expression of love.

When I look at this, I'm suddenly confronted by my own thoughts of Monika as a fictional character, rather than as AI. Rather than accepting the conceit of +'s world, that Monika is truly an artificial intelligence in a simulated reality, looking at Monika as a fictional character with awareness of something beyond the fictional. That she is, in a sense, on a dimension below.

Yet despite that, she tries to reach behind the curtain, to reach out and touch your hand separated by the screen.

And regardless of any motivation, she loves you. She does, wholeheartedly, and she wants nothing but the best for you. She wants to give you all of the love she has. "Only someone who has lost all hope in themselves is the one who is condemning Monika to her own sad, unfulfilled fantasy. If you believe Monika loves you, then you've found it in you to love yourself a little bit, and that's what she would want more than anything."

It doesn't really answer the question, in my opinion. But I'm not sure it's supposed to.

Really, it's tough to make heads or tails of what that actually means in the context of this question. I often find myself wondering if I'm thinking too hard about things as presented in the game, and diving off into wild speculation into things which Salvato didn't intend.

I think the most important element to all of this, which people so frequently look past, is that Monika's own perspective is heavily limited. I have some other thoughts on this that I won't get into here, but just because we know something's true or we think something about her true underlying motivations doesn't mean she knows it.

A lot of what she says and does may be consequences of denial, but that doesn't mean conscious denial necessarily. I think something a lot of people don't realize is that Monika isn't actually some omnipotent or all-seeing goddess. There are things she doesn't understand, and things she can't control. I talk often about how we have no real communication with Monika outside of the limited interface of the game, but I'm not sure even she knows how limited that interface is, given how she places some blame onto our shoulders for how things turned out prior to Act 3, among other things. She has the capacity to be surprised by things happening in game, given that she was surprised by how we were left with Yuri's corpse for an entire weekend, commenting that she didn't realize the script had broken that badly.

The way she manipulates the others seems very half-hearted and inefficient, and she's frustrated by how tough it is to make things turn out how she wants.

I mean, despite believing herself to have very deep knowledge and control over how things are managed in her reality, she doesn't realize at all that she's done this exact same song and dance over and over across millions of people playing Doki Doki Literature Club. Even within the conceit of +, over each reset loop, the same things happen, and she has no idea. She is still subject to the whims of being a character in this game; she is not somehow divorced from it due to her awareness.

Her life is a tightly wound coil of duplicate decisions leading to the same outcomes each time, and she has no idea. And regardless of your decisions, things turn out the same.

She's the same as any of the girls, operating with their own code forcing them to do certain things. Each of them might realize something is wrong, or different; some cracks show through Monika's overt manipulation of elements of their personality, but they still act as though it comes from within, because that's how it feels, and why would you assume differently?

Somebody built them. Their existence is determined by a base of hard code, that although their consciousness may resist it, ultimately defines what their consciousness even is.

And Monika is no different.

It's implied pretty heavily that the four of them are on the same level, within the conceit of the game being artificial intelligence responding to stimuli. As Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri are all tweaked in different elements, they change in personality. Their actions change, in ways that both Monika and the player don't necessarily expect.

Sayori hangs herself, Natsuki is able to write a note about her concerns for Yuri, and Yuri stabs herself multiple times, leaving you staring at a rotting corpse all weekend. When Sayori becomes Club President, she immediately sets to keep you for herself. Or she loses her mind. Whatever.

My point is, they're all on the same level, just with only one having awareness of the real nature of their reality.

So...that all being said.

Monika's love isn't a lie, not even one she's telling herself. But it doesn't seem to make sense, does it?

So the real question, I guess, isn't whether it's true or false.

It's whether she developed it naturally, or if it was implanted.

Does that even matter in the context of fiction?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

All these questions and more...uh, I don't know. Seek medical attention if brainrot lasts longer than 4 hours. If you read to the bottom of this post, you're cute. Do the monkey with me!

[inamindfarfaraway]

I just finished watching a playthrough of Shadow Generations and I am mentally unwell. A few thoughts:

SHE’LL ALWAYS BE IN HIS HEART

His SMILE! His real actual smile with soft eyes! For her!

He also didn’t know it was her when he first ran in to save her, he just heard a random child in trouble and immediately dropped his urgent mission to protect them! Because he’s a hero!

“I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine.” He lets himself hope… after everything, he thinks he finally has a second chance. Shadow, aways the pessimist, has no fear of paradoxes or breaking the timeline or anything bad coming from altering the past. He doesn’t dismiss it as impossible. He just believes. And with the context of Dark Beginnings, those imaginary flashes of him and Maria in a field of flowers, this is literally his dream come true. “I pretend that’ll see you again, and that I’ll save you from all the things I failed to.” IT HURTS

Shadow, Omega, Rogue and Sonic are all friends who love each other and enjoy each other’s company! Shadow was having so much fun challenging Sonic and respects him too much to play dirty with his ridiculously overpowered new tricks.

He did the fake Chaos Emerald con in reverse! Rogue has been rubbing off on him.

Black Doom and the new powers he gives Shadow were seriously unsettling. The way this teenage boy clutches his head and screams in agony as tendrils of darkness and viscera grab him, drown him, rip out of him… I did not like that. Hasn’t he suffered enough? It does look cool, though.

So that was an extremely cathartic final boss fight. It’s nicely ironic that Black Doom keeps saying that Shadow was “made for” destruction when we all know that he was made to heal and save lives, and he calls Shadow’s resistance “meaningless” while Shadow’s awesome theme song playing underneath goes “You’ve found the meaning that you searched for so long”. The army saw him as a weapon and his creator used him as a weapon and now his other creator is trying to do the same, but he’s not! He never was and never will be!

Speaking of boss fights, I wasn’t expecting to have any feelings about Mephiles, of all characters. But damn. A one-dimensional, pure evil villain reduced to a terrified tragedy desperate to matter and simply survive. “I want… to exist!”

I’m not over the fact that SHADOW SHOWS YOU WHERE TO FIND THE LIGHT. SHADOW SHOWS YOU WHERE THE LIGHT IS. A terminally ill child gave her new family and only hope that name for that reason. I. I’m crying.

And so is he at the end! They finally let him cry, even if we only saw one tear. Still! Emotional vulnerability for the win!

He could have frozen them in time and kept them alive… but he chose to move on. To save everyone else, to maintain his relationships and the life he’d built for himself in the present, to look forward to the future. To do what they’d want him to. I’m so proud of him. I’m so happy. My heart has been shattered.

[jacksprostate]

me and @a-forsteri were talking about how the narrator like, desperately wants someone to tell him his life is fucked up, what he does is fucked up, he desperately wants someone to respond with the gravity he desires.

Like, he tells these people on the plane what he does. Trying to fuck with them. Desperately hoping!! One of them will go: holy shit!!! That's really fucked up how do you live with that!!! But all he gets is people thinking he's the freak and just asking what car company he works for. Because it is easier to pretend he himself is the problem, maybe just his company, rather than actually face and recognize the systemic, widespread nature of what he's saying.

It leans together with his sense of where he is in his office, too. He feels separate from all these people. They feel fake. They feel like people going on as normal even though they're all working to hasten the apocalypse, and no one acknowledges it! They're all perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to any of the distant consequences of their actions. That is what their jobs are for. Keep them up in the cubicles, nicely fed and watered with inflated salaries, and then they'll have no issue with the distant sense that they may be contributing to a corrupt system. They can't change the system, but they need to feed their kids, so hell, just don't think about it too much.

But he doesn't have that option. He is the one who actually does go out into the field and he sees the direct result of all of their collective actions, but especially his. Every crash related to a faulty part he sees is because someone like him before him, or him himself, ran the formula and let this happen. He has no choice but to see the very real result of his actions.

And he feels INSANE over it. Because he returns to the office and it's just numbers. Applying the formula. Hearing your coworkers chat about a potluck. You're not contributing to a horrific system, you ARE the horrific system, and it's like you're the only one who sees that. He literally cannot sleep over it.

And when you tell people about it, they try to minimize it. To your company, to you. Because that is easier than acknowledging just how many things have to be corrupt and uncaring of human life to allow this to be the case. It's too much. Stick your head in the sand.

He desperarely wants someone to scream at him: how could you do that? How could anyone do that? Why is this allowed to happen? Doesn't anyone see something wrong here?

He imagines his plane crashing. Free him from this. The burden of every piece of normality manufactured for satiating any thought and discomfort he has about his job. It's all petty, pointless fluff. It's putting some artificial grass on the feedlot. Why does everything and everyone say it's all worth it for this garbage?

He wants someone to tell him all this. He doesn't want to be alone. He already feels catastrophically alone. In his life, whenever he talks about this, whenever he does anything. He loves the support groups because you're allowed to have abject misery there. You rejoice in it. Everyone's life is falling apart and ending and nothing means anything good ever. They're all honest about it, too. He plays coy when he talks about his job, but these people, everyone knows they're falling apart, and it's recognized and treated as the horror it is. This is freedom. Hitting bottom is freedom.

But he's supposed to be happy, because he's got his cushy little IKEA nest. It is only when people think he also has cancer and parasites causing his deep dissociation from his own life and general aura of resentment and misery that it's treated as something that isn't just... an individual flaw. Because it's easier for there to be something wrong with him than for that thing wrong with him to be how society makes him be this way. Rewards him for it.

So he invents someone. Tyler. To stop his little dance. To interrupt him. Drag him away and tell him all those little sundries are meaningless. Like he knows. But now he has someone saying it's true. The world IS falling apart. Everything is fucked up. It's everything he knows and has been too cowardly to say and now he finally has someone to say it for him and push to make some changes in his life. To expect him to actually do something. To feel his rage for him. And it's a catch-22, because a large part of what he hates about himself is that he's too cowardly and noncommittal to just do this all on his own.